I passed the half-century mark this past February, and it got me thinking I should write down a few remembrances of the first 50 years of a life that’s had its fair share of adventure, a lot of laughs, and an absolutely incredible number of interesting people. I hope you don’t mind indulging me. The things I’m writing about today took place almost a quarter century ago, so I could have some of the names wrong. I reached out to Danielle (mentioned below), the only person from Sfizzio I still have contact info for, to see if she had any remembrances from Sfizzio. I’ll post an update if I hear back. Duff (pictured above with my sister) moved to Canada, but he and I are still really close friends.

When I first moved to Philadelphia in October 2001, I roomed with a buddy of mine from Hawaii named Duff. Some of you from the very early days of quizzo may remember him (he actually hosted at the Vous before I did!) We lived on the third floor above the old Levis Hot Dog restaurant on 6th, between South and Lombard.

As a couple of young dudes with no expendable income to go out with, playing Scrabble was our primary activity. We had a board set up on a couple of milk crates, and we would listen to WIP (we had no TV or computer) while playing. Duff typically won, but I got enough dubs in there to make it respectable and keep me hungry for more. We also played a wiffle ball game, where if you hit it past one line we drew in the sand, it was a single, past another line a double, and so on. We lived across the street from Starr Garden, so we had a great field for wiffle ball. I also played ultimate frisbee with several young Jefferson med students once a week at Starr Garden.

I had very little money and needed to quickly find a job. I had some restaurant experience, notably at a place called The Trawler in Exmore, which specialized in Clam chowder.

Clam chowder experience didn’t seem to interest the folks hiring at successful restaurants and bars in Philly, so I wandered around sheepishly from place to place, filling out applications and not getting hired. One day, while dropping off an application at Bookbinders, I decided to head across the street to a restaurant called Sfizzio, located in the building that now houses Zahav (perhaps to rent the building you need to have at least one Z in the name?) I walked in, the manager named Marco looked up at me, and when I told him that I’d like to fill out an application, he said, “When can you start?”

I said, “Tomorrow.”

“You’re hired.”

It was an excellent restaurant that nobody ever went to, meaning they had openings for shitty servers with clam chowder experience and we had quite some time to spend with our fellow employees. The owners were an Italian guy named Tony and an older Jewish man named Norman, probably in his 80s, who used to sit at the bar with his Soviet born wife, Sascha. He told a lot of ethnic European jokes (I remember the Greeks being a popular target) and she was interesting to talk to, with a Russian accent and regret that the Soviet Union had collapsed. “There was no homelessness under Soviet rule. Everyone had a home,” I remember her saying, sweetly. The manager Marco was a short and stout Italian, who was excitable, energetic, who might yell at you one minute and treat you like his best friend the next. I had spent some time a few years previous working at an Italian resort, and had come to appreciate this personality type. I liked Marco.

The chef was a fairly friendly Italian (from Italy), and while I can’t recall his name, I do remember the name of his wife, Donatella. She was quite beautiful but NOT particularly friendly. She never smiled, never helped anyone, just made her money and scowled. Danielle was the bartender, and was quite the opposite, a lovely 20-year old with a sweet personality. Donatella didn’t like her. The bar was rarely busy, but on Mondays a woman would come and read tea leaves, and that attracted some of the middle aged women from the nearby Society Hill Towers.

We had one server named Ralph, a handsome Turk with terrific hair, but VERY serious. He had a brooding look about him, but although he was solemn he was extremely nice and I liked him a great deal. He also worked at Johnny Rockets, and one time a couple of the other servers and I went by to grab a burger and say hi. Seeing this stern Turk dancing in synchronicity with the other servers to “Jailhouse Rock” in a 1950s diner was quite a sight. I think he quit Johnny Rocket’s shortly thereafter.

Incidentally, Ralph was with me the first time I ever played quizzo. It was at the Dickens Inn (currently Cav’s on Headhouse Square) and it was hosted by Irish John. I was endlessly amused by this ribald and outrageous Irishman yelling at the customers, but I also thought, “What if I did this but…was nice to the customers?” An idea was born.

There was Gary, a lovable but absent-minded goofball from the Northeast who always seemed to be about $20 away from being evicted. Donatella REALLY didn’t like Gary. There was Julio, a young Puerto Rican server, just an incredibly friendly young guy. Then there was the other Italian server with a tremendous mullet, I can’t think of his name, but he was the only glum Italian I think I’ve ever met. His marriage had recently ended, and he was heartbroken about it. He would stare out the large glass windows that faced out on the US Customs building, and if you came near him, he would say something in a thick Italian accent like, “What is the point of it all?” I assumed the question was rhetorical, and would quietly slink away to chat with Danielle at the bar, getting scowled at by Donatella on my way there.

Dinner shifts were pretty bad, but lunch shifts were even worse. There were times I might get 2 tables, and since they didn’t feed us there, after getting food at the deli next door, I’d come away in the negative. It was not an ideal gig. Still, my memories of the place are pretty positive, and I wish I knew how to contact Ralph and Julio, I’d love to catch up with them both. I did run into Danielle a few years ago, while she was bartending at National Mechanics. She’s started her own photography business.

My roommate Duff and my girlfriend Colby both had much better jobs, Duff at a Stephen Starr restaurant and Colby at the Plough and the Stars. I won’t say which Starr restaurant Duff worked at because one night he snuck out with some Kobe beef and we made Kobe beef cheesesteaks, which for people who sat in folding chairs because we couldn’t afford a couch was pretty amazing. Colby was pretty much subsidizing me throughout that year, as my $150 a week wasn’t really bringing a whole lot to the table. She would often make more in a night than I did in a week.

Not too long after, I’d move across the street to a job at the City Tavern, where I’d dress like an 18th century bozo and serve lobster pot pie and make slightly more money than I did at Sfizzio’s. That was a whole other story…in fact it might be like 3 or 4 stories. There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s save that for another time.